Challenging the Notion that Depleted Soil is the Reason why Vegetables are less Nutritious Nowadays (Article)

[Susan BBPM]

In summary, this article from Rothamstead Research - in the UK (no idea who they are, what their agenda is if any and how reputable they are), refutes the notion that reduction in nutrients in veg is caused by depleted soil. They claim that studies show it's not changes in soil or climate that make the difference, but new varieties developed since the 60's to produce greater yields, taste or pest resistance.

(NOTE: I've read the same thing in several articles and studies).

Fact or Fake News: is our food becoming less nutritious?

Perhaps it’s just the time of year, or perhaps it’s the increasing popularity of plant-based diets, but the Twittersphere is once again ablaze with claims that our food is far less nutritious than it used to be. Is it true? Do we really have to eat twice as much broccoli? Have we killed the...

www.rothamsted.ac.uk

 

[roadrunner]

I do not doubt new varieties do affect the nutritional value of plants; however, I do believe (but remain open-minded) that soil is a major factor in the nutritional density of plants.

I'll have to read the link later, but here's an interesting book on soil health and nutrient density of plants.


Title:

"What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health"​

And here's an interview with one of the authors of the above book

 

[Susan BBPM]

I have to say, the idea of improving the quality of soil is HUGELY appealing. So even if it isn't necessary to grow great crops and flowers I'm still hugely motivated to do it.

I have this image of my head of gradually improving soil health, soil life, Mycorrhizal network, diversity etc until I reach this mythical point where I drop a single magic bean on my soil and, as if by magic, an oasis of stunning, nutritious abundannce unfolds from the soil - in my head compete with water well, windmill and little cottage with puffs of smoke coming out of the chimney!!

But I do want to get an idea of how much is hype (or rather, how much is really only specific to badly abused aggrecultural land) and how much has real, worthwhile benefit in the typical garden. I would like to be taking objective measurements of what comes out of my beds year after year. Not just volume, but quality, taste, nutritional value. And it seems these things are very hard to quantify.

 

[redback]

It's not just a question of soil. There is solar light and water. Our plants, like us, are mostly water. But water is mysterious in having an electrically charged exclusion zone (EZ) and 'liquid crystals'. There's a plateau in Venezuela that can only be reached via thick Amazonian jungle and then climbing 80-meter-high sheer cliffs. No human has stepped on it since the beginning of time, and it gets 80 inches (2 meters) of rain annually and is full of frog-ponds. Recently both Russian and German scientists reached it and took water samples back to their laboratory. They found it had either 40,000 or 80,000 times more liquid crystals than piped water. So, your water might have the power to influence food nutrition.
The power of the sun and light availability is also pertinent to nutrition values.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Without a doubt there's a massive difference between tap water and rain.

We had about 6 weeks of drought in May, June but I had the sprinkler on every day so my plants didn't dry out. But they didn't grow much either. The moment it rained the garden sprung to life. Apparently there's nitrogen in the rain and also I read something about it being electrically charged....so even rain water in a water butt isn't the same.

But honestly, I'm starting to think the whole notion of 'nutrient dense food' is a bit of a red herring. You need sufficient calories and nutrients in your diet. If you can't get enough nutrients whilst staying inside your calorie requriment you'll either be deficient or you'll get fat trying to get enough nutrients. That's it. Cramming in nutrients you don't need is pointless. Although that said, not everything you do in the garden needs a point - just as an excercise or experiment or from a perfectionist point of view it's a very worthwhile goal.

 

[roadrunner]

Even if nutrient dense food from healthy soils is not as true as some say, it doesn't change how I do things, simply from a money and healthy eco-system perspective.

Using fertilizers and various x-icides cost money and there is no doubt that they have a negative effect on the environment. We are currently seeing major red tide in California, which is killing a lot of sea life. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-tide-sickens-dolphins-sea-lions/70389766007/

Red tides do occur naturally, but our use of fertilizers are increasing their effects; the areas are referred to as Dead Zones.

Dead Zone Formation

www.vims.edu

 

[headfullofbees]

I think both are a factor.
Brix readings, although basically a sugar rating, often correlate to micro-nutrient density in plants, but as with most fruits, the varieties themselves will vary significantly even if grown in the same soil.

Supermarkets want three things from crops: low prices, which usually equates to high yields & short growing times, cosmetic perfection & shelf life, which both tend to mean picking unripe, & falsely ripening.
I do not mean picking early in the natural ripening process, & then hindering climacteric ripening; I mean picking well before the ripening process begins, storing & totally falsely ripening them, to the extent that only the colour changes, for example, in tomatoes where the supermarkets are selling red, absolutely unripe fruits & advertising as "sweet & CRUNCHY!!!!" on the packs.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Even if nutrient dense food from healthy soils is not as true as some say, it doesn't change how I do things, simply from a money and healthy eco-system perspective.

Using fertilizers and various x-icides cost money and there is no doubt that they have a negative effect on the environment. We are currently seeing major red tide in California, which is killing a lot of sea life. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-tide-sickens-dolphins-sea-lions/70389766007/

Red tides do occur naturally, but our use of fertilizers are increasing their effects; the areas are referred to as Dead Zones.

Dead Zone Formation

www.vims.edu

Couldn't agree more. For me the driving factor is self-reliance. My interest in gardening etc is a direct result of me ceasing to trust big business / government. I was quite happy to live in their plastic world whilst I continued to trust them. The way they handled COVID scared me away from ANY reliance on government/corporations.

Having cut myself adrift from the institutions I've spent nearly 60 years trusting, I was left wondering what to do next. Self reliance is the only option for me, and that means I have to rely on approaches such as no-dig, green manures ... or what they call regenerative farming techniques. So, fertilzers, chemicals, bought seeds etc are all out of the question. (Not that I'm taking an ivory tower approach, but that's the direction I'm heading in).

I've also become aware of just how flawed the reliance on science and 'evidence based' approaches is. Research is hugely complex and expensive. Research doesn't happen unless someone wealthy is willing to fund it. I think the evidence based approaches we are controlled by today were started in Tony Blair's era (EDIT: Blair was UK Prime Minister in the late 90's and early 2000's) - a very recent thing. Our hunches and gut feel are the result of thousands of years of natural selection. I consider both, but my hunches and feelings ultimately win out.

These articles suggest that scientific studies and data don't support what popular myth thinks it does. But that doesn't mean what people believe is wrong - their hunches and experiences might well be ahead of the science.

I still love the idea of making my soil and my garden so teaming with life that you could drop a magic bean and watch a whole oasis of abundance unfold before your eyes! A big part of it is how you feel. I'll wager that science WILL one day provide explanations for what many people feel to be true. Natural selection will favour the people that are instinctively driven to seek out the things in their environment that will help them to thrive and pass on their genes. There will therefore be genetic knowledge at play.